Numlock News: November 10, 2025 • Bobbleheads, Badlands, Spyce

Nov 10, 2025

By Walt Hickey

Welcome back! Fun newsletter today, plus a plug for a cool new podcast.

Badlands

Predator: Badlands stunned this weekend with a $40 million domestic opening, smashing expectations, which had hovered around $25 million. Predator: Badlands tells the classic story of a youth on a road trip with only his digital assistant to keep him company. The movie earned another $40 million overseas, making it the best-grossing entry in the Predator canon. It’s also a great continuation of the franchise’s revitalization following 2021’s Prey and this year’s Predator: Killer of Killers animated anthology.

Pamela McClintock, The Hollywood Reporter

Spyce

Salad chain Sweetgreen is selling off its kitchen automation subsidiary Spyce, which makes the “Infinite Kitchen” for the bowl company. The buyer is Wonder, a ghost kitchen mess hall concept that has bought its way into the food delivery space. Wonder boasts more than 80 locations in the U.S., making a particular splash when it bought Grubhub for $650 million and Blue Apron for $103 million in 2023. Wonder snapped up Spyce for $100 million in cash and $86 million in stock, which is a solid flip for Sweetgreen, given the salad company bought Spyce for just $70 million four years ago.

Ben Coley, QSR Magazine

Praise Be

The hottest thing in pop music these days is a 2,000-year-old trend known as “Christianity,” as several acts from Christian music have made bona fide hits and crossed over into mainstream music. Forrest Frank is the face of the moment, racking up 1.2 billion on-demand streams in the U.S. this year. Other musicians such as Brandon Lake (862 million streams) and Josiah Queen (515 million) are pushing Christian music to one of the fastest-growing genres. That being said, overall market share is still low — up to two percent as of this year, increasing from 1.7 percent at the end of 2023.

Elias Leight, The Wall Street Journal

Hey, I wanted to shout out a fun new podcast that I really dig. Jacob Goldstein and Robert Smith of Planet Money just premiered Business History, a show uncovering the best stories from the history of business. Early episodes include stories of how the world’s most lovable car was originally made just to please Hitler, Thomas Edison’s history with the electric chair and how Southwest Airlines was launched based on a triangle drawn on a napkin. It’s a cool show from people I’ve always enjoyed, and I’m helping to get the word out. Check it out here. Business History is available on Apple, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get podcasts.

Park Is Closed

After merging Six Flags with Cedar Fair to form an amusement park behemoth with 56 parks, the company is looking to shut some down or sell some to downsize. The company has closed Six Flags America near Washington D.C., closed the water park Hurricane Harbor and is set to close California’s Great America in Santa Clara sometime between 2028 and 2032. However, it’s important to see the positive here; Six Flags’ loss could be your gain if you’re interested in taking that Roller Coaster Tycoon habit to the next level. Worst-case scenario, we’re good for some great abandoned theme park content in a few years.

Blake Taylor, Attractions Magazine

Bobble Bubble

Bobblehead company Funko is in a tough position, with worldwide sales down 14.3 percent year over year in the most recent quarter and U.S. sales down 20.1 percent. The company lost about $9 million in the third quarter, which is an improvement from the $41 million it lost in the second quarter, but still a tough few months. Funko has disclosed that there is reason to be concerned about its ability to stay in business. Funko’s particular style of merchandise is no longer a profitable pursuit. Pair that with its current loan arrangements, and Funko may need to start cutting new deals or will run into serious trouble.

Milton Griepp, ICV2

Marathon

There were 59,226 finishers in the New York City Marathon last weekend, the largest number for any marathon. Driving the growth of the event are people under 30 and people over 60. As recently as 2022, 17 percent of finishers were under 30 years old. That cohort now stands at 24 percent, matching a trend also seen in Los Angeles. From 2015 to 2025, there were 57 percent more male runners in their 60s and 159 percent more women in their 60s in the NYC Marathon, which also reflects a pattern seen in other marathons like Chicago and Boston. Additionally, interest in running groups has prompted a bit of a boom in young runners more generally, replacing the participants from the 1970s running boom who are getting up there in years.

Lev Akabas, Sportico

Gold

Gold is a traditional gift in Vietnam (connoting luck), so at a record $4,380 per ounce globally, wedding season is getting very expensive. Vietnam’s gold demand is roughly 55 tons per year, the highest in the region, but it only imported 13.5 tons last year. Demand remains high, though, and people aren’t selling their cache, which means that the price of gold in Vietnam is now 10 to 15 percent higher than the global price. It has become a significant enough issue that the government is overhauling the import monopoly held by the State Bank of Vietnam in a quest to get that price down to a two to three percent premium.

Nguyen Dieu Tu Uyen and Francesca Stevens, Bloomberg

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